Help! Brand new ikea furniture gives me a stuffy nose

July 13, 2012 8:25 PM

Bought ikea furniture for a bedroom.. big mistake. The smell of paint is so strong that if i sleep with the windows closed i wake up with a stuffy nose. Is there any remedy?
posted by 3mendo to Health & Fitness (10 answers total)

It's likely not the paint...I'd say it's probably whatever glue they use to manufacture their cheapass particleboard. (No judgment...I'm surrounded by ikea stuff right now myself.

Is it possible for you to put your furniture outside in direct sunlight for several hours tomorrow? That will help. Even just time in a well-ventilated area will help those things off-gas.
posted by phunniemee at 8:33 PM on July 13, 2012 [1 favorite]

When I use nail polish indoors, I use an overhead fan, plus a small fan in the window facing outward. It is very efficient at reducing the smell. So, I would use multiple fans, and especially use outward-facing fans in the windows to keep the air circulating for several days. Eventually, I'd expect the volatile chemicals to evaporate and the smell to go away.
posted by insectosaurus at 8:42 PM on July 13, 2012

Agree with phunniemee, smell will go away with time. I just setup some ikea furniture two weeks ago. I noticed a smell initially, but not now.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 8:44 PM on July 13, 2012

Response by poster: It's been a month and the smell is still there.. direct sunlight is not an option (bed + cupboard).
I usually do the outward facing fan trick to disperse smoke smell, but it's not an option because i'd like to keep the windows closed at night. I guess I'll try an ionizer..
posted by 3mendo at 8:51 PM on July 13, 2012

Adding a few air-purifying houseplants to your bedroom might help a lot.
posted by logic vs love at 9:40 PM on July 13, 2012 [2 favorites]

Then try wiping it down with this product: odoban.com
posted by JohnnyGunn at 9:49 PM on July 13, 2012

I use a bowl of water with some drops of vanilla essence to get rid of difficult odours. You can also put a few drops on the light bulb - the heat disperses a nice vanilla scent, which seems to negate other smells.
posted by honey-barbara at 12:58 AM on July 14, 2012

Did you try to talk to Ikea? They are usually quite nice about returns. Otherwise, evaporation literally increases exponentially with temperature, so if you cannot use the sun, you can speed it up a lot with a hairdryer of an incandescent lamp. If it's the particle board, as phunniemee says, it could help as a last resort to seal its exposed surfaces with a plastic paint.
posted by springload at 7:21 AM on July 14, 2012

You might try getting some odor neutralizers for your space... Not another chemical smell, but something that will gather up the smell.

I like these volcanic rock ones.
posted by Heart_on_Sleeve at 8:47 AM on July 14, 2012

I have a good bit of Ikea furniture, and while it smells at first, it's never lasted more than a week or so. Is it possible it's just a particular piece that's emitting the smell? Maybe you got one with bad glue or something.
posted by !Jim at 7:53 PM on July 15, 2012